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Baseball Heroes

Recently, I was sorting through a wooden box stored long ago in a corner of a dusty cabinet.

To my surprise, I came across a small collection of battered baseball cards, the ones so popular today with collectors.

These particular cards were left over from the card wars waged in the mid 1950's at St. Cecelia's, my elementary school alma mater.

The wars to which I refer were actually the first contests in my then young life in which I risked something I valued, that is, just-purchased unblemished baseball cards, against something someone else valued, the cards other boys had brought to the school yard.

The way we played the game, I'm certain, was repeated tens of thousands of times daily on playgrounds throughout America.

A school building wall was chosen, one relatively sheltered from wind, and a line was drawn, perhaps ten feet from said wall. Then two or more players in possession of baseball cards began tossing or "floating" or "flipping" their cards in turn, attempting to have one's own card alight upon any portion of a card previously thrown by any player. The first player in sequence to land a card upon a previously thrown card won all the cards on the ground up to that point. One of the ground rules was that one could not drop a card at one's feet. The card had to travel a minimum of half way to the wall. The best strategy was to actually hit the wall and then have the card float down to its base which is where - theoretically - the most cards were waiting to be claimed.

It was amazing how many cards were at stake in some games, perhaps as many as fifteen or twenty before a win was declared.

Nervousness seemed to make throwing or floating the cards accurately more difficult. It was my first exposure to the personal phenomenon of "choking," not a pleasant consideration considering how roundly the players whose images were on the cards were reviled by our collective fathers, if they, the players, did not deliver in times of game tension.

Playing with cards that I had purchased not fifteen minutes previously, I was naturally concerned about losing them immediately, but play them I did, and lose them I did as well. Predictably, just as most other boys of that day at St. Cecilia's, I lost them to the fellow we nicknamed the CLEANER.

The CLEANER was the moniker chosen because the fellow so named always cleaned the pockets of the rest of us. His name was Rene.

I lost touch with Rene after grammar school. I have often wondered where Rene is, and what he did with his life.

Rene was Canadian, having been sent to the US to stay with his aunt because of a family tragedy, the specifics of which I never learned.

He was at first just an acquaintance. Later, Rene became a good friend.

At the end of each day, I would help Rene sort and count his winnings, which were substantial. Rene would win perhaps two hundred cards per school day in the combined forty minutes of play alloted before school and at lunch time.

Rene's floating game was easily of Olympic quality. He had marvelous skill in controlling the float of his cards. Rene also had nerves of steel, and a heart of coal. I never saw Rene's hand waver (steel) nor did Rene ever return a single card to a downhearted player (coal).

What made losing these cards so difficult, in addition to their newness, was their other attraction.

The bubble gum perfume that adhered to them was just like the aroma of a new car's interior. Often we losers would be cleaned of our cards while still chewing the enclosed bubble gum. Thus, the flavor of the gum and our ownership of the gum-perfumed cards were lost at approximately the same instant. A double disaster.

On the rare occasion Rene lost a round of card floating, he was quite jovial, simply returning to us losers cards that he quickly won from us again.

I don't believe Rene even knew where the grocery store, our source of his supply of baseball cards, was located. He simply never had to purchase any packages himself. And, as far as Rene missing the sweetness of the bubble gum itself, he preferred a more elegant treat, the candy that the good nuns sold from the convent window for a nickel per large piece. The candy was called beaulango, and was by far superior to bubble gum. I know this only because, on occasion, Rene would share his beaulango with me, his poor destitute friend. So, perhaps the CLEANER's heart wasn't as black as we all surmised.

I only saw Rene's full collection of baseball cards once. He invited me to his home on the second floor of a tenement building. His entire wall closet was stacked from floor to ceiling with shoe boxes. Every box contained hundreds of baseball cards.

I fear though that none of the cards Rene possessed would be worth much today. They were all well battered, having been through the card wars. It was not possible to play the game without seriously damaging the cards.

On the other hand, we weren't looking at them as investments. We were looking at them as representations of our baseball heroes.

As George Carlin, may he rest in peace, once said, "I understand why young boys collect baseball cards. They are photos of their heroes. On the other hand, when adults collect baseball cards, they are not collecting photos of their heroes. They are collecting pictures of MEN."

I'm not so sure, George. Heroes can be treasured at any age. Adult baseball card collectors may be on to something.

Ron - Toy Tech

Wednesday, 3:10 pm | September 30th, 2009

Comments

Ray Brockfelder on Wednesday, 8:35 pm | September 30th, 2009

Terrific Story.Ray